The Garin Tzabar Edition

“Guess who's back? Back again?

Shady's back. Tell a friend.”

-Eminem, Without me

It seems to me that every good blog needs its own little quirk. I've decided that mine will be a quote from a song that relates, however vaguely, to the post in which it's quoted in. This post, for example, is all about coming back, returning. All about friends. And I'll even throw in a bit of uncertainty. Unlike Shady, though, we will not be discussing creating monsters, weed mixed with some hard liquor, or not cooperating today. Quite the opposite, in fact. Today we discuss the Tzava (Israeli Army). Because, as many of you might know, today marks a very special occasion. Today, over a hundred of young Jewish men and women return to their ancestral homeland to begin the latest chapter in their lives, and in-so-doing, continue the latest chapter in our national history, as Garin Tzabar '13 kicks off.

Now, let me clear a few things up, although I am somewhat of a layman in this department. Garin Tzabar is a program, for lack of a better word, in which Lone Soldiers live together as a group on kibbutzim, moshavim, or, as it turns out, in Talpiyot (an industrial neighbourhood in Jerusalem). For the few months before they draft, they take part in Ulpan, physical training, and general pre-army preparation, in an environment in which they can bond together while still embracing the individual responsibility which they have taken upon themselves. Sach hakol (all in all), it is an awesome way to do the army, from what I've been told.

I've been in Israel for a while, but unlike the vast majority of my close friends here, I have neither made aliyah, nor served in the army. This has put me in a strange position where I have had countless conversations about both, but can't fully relate to either. That being said, I know enough about it to be truly inspired by the sacrifice that my dear friends are making, and to make sure that they constantly know that I have no bedtime, that my Sundays are fantastic and that I literally only have one green shirt here. But they still get to shoot tanks. And take free buses. And shoot tanks.

Now, there are two reasons I'm writing this post:

1. I have to publicly let Jake and Richard, two of my friends starting Garin Tzabar today, know that I love you guys and I'm really proud of you and if I'm still here when you draft and you don't let me play with your guns there will be hell to pay. That may have been funny, but I'm not joking. At all.

2. A year ago today, some of my closest friends here kind of awkwardly met me for the first time when they themselves began their life as Garinim (lit. Sunflower seeds consumed by the kilogram by crazy Israeli soccer fans), while some of my other closest friends continued to know me, and still continue to know me to this very day!

For serious, you guys have all been a constant source of pride and inspiration for me, and whether it be heavy-duty wine/vodka tasting, musical education, spontaneous (or possibly creepily premeditated) slumber-parties, droog shenanigans, Rav Noam stories, Trance Bar escapades, fantastic blog posts or stories about being in freaking tanks or jumping out of freaking helicopters or shooting freaking grenades or shooting freaking Adderall or shooting freaking movies, it's been amazing knowing you all, both in yeshiva and out of it, and, by the way, I'm pretty sure that was the longest list of inside-jokes ever made. So to Jake and Richard, good luck, I hope you guys have the time of your lives, and well done for getting the hell outta The Dorms before I did. To Aaron, Adir, Batya, Bec, Becca, Ben, Chaim, Elie, Hartley, Hersh, Malkaya, Ofek, Ouriel, Revi, Sagi, Shmuel, Stef, and Zalman: HAPPY GRANNIVERSARY BABY!! (Cos, Garin, and anniversary, granniversary, get it?)

Now, a few days ago Jake and I were talking about Israel, and Israelis, and money, and other things commonly found in the middle east - Shariah-Law, anyone? - and I realise that I never really talk about what I personally love about this crazy, crazy place. It just so happens that I started a blog a few days ago, so I thought, how cool would it be if a Things I love About This Crazy Place section just popped up on my blog? And just then, the weirdest thing happened!

Things I Love About This Crazy Place:

Israelis be cray. It's pretty well known. But in their eccentricity lies something wonderfully endearing. They can be mean as Mark Wahlberg, but it's almost always out of some strange brand of unconditional love. I've seen a Yemenite man we'd never met before absolutely ripping on a friend of mine, in his own peculiar way, and then, in the next sentence offering to drive my friend to the Misrad haPanim (Ministry of the Interior), which was a good two hours away, to sort out an issue my friend was having with regards to military service.

A more recent example of this inexplicably extravagant hospitality occurred just the other day. A friend of mine told me that he helped a family find their way out of the maze that is the Old City of Jerusalem. Afterwards they traded contact information and offered him to come over for shabbat whenever he wants to. As if that wasn't enough of an invitation, later that day they called him and asked if he was indeed coming that shabbat.

These instances of people opening up their hearts and homes to random strangers is something I personally love about Israel, not because of the heart-warmingness of it all, but because to be honest, it makes absolutely no sense, it's absolutely mind-blowing. And you know how I feel about that. Israelis do, indeed, be cray...

“We all know that life can get hectic,

But if you live in the second

You exist in the present,

And that's how you stay connected.

Go through good times and hardships,

And if you learn to accept it,

And know that every struggle in life

Is there to teach you a lesson.

It's times like these that make you.

It's always the darkest part of night,

Right before the sun has its break-through.”

-Inhale Deep, by Macklemore

Today I decided to start my blog. Well actually I decided to start it a while ago. But as you know, or will come to know, I hate doing anything that involves any form of commitment. So even as I write this I have no idea how often I will post, or for how long this will continue. I also know that the fact that I'm entertained by what I'm writing- at least most of the time- doesn't mean that you (plural form hopefully) will be.

Now that we've moved through the usual self-deprecation that comes with this sorta thang, let's get to it. In the past few months I've been, thanks mainly to a good friend, who doesn't like attention quite as much as I do, going through a bit of a musical rebirth. In fact I've recently released three Grammy-nominated albums. But for real, I started listening to musicians ranging from Pink Floyd to Jay-Z to Led Zeppelin to Idan Raichel to Wolfmother to Biggie to Nas and Damien Marley. Basically getting the musical education that I denied myself when I was younger. At the ripe old age of 22, I've realised that Pink Floyd are the closest I could come to capturing the perfect dream that I don't fully remember in the morning, The Beatles go 50/50, Simon and Garfunkel, Mom's favourite, rock my socks, but Eminem and the Red Hot Chili Peppers remain the greatest musicians of the past few decades. But what do I know, I'm just a writer. (Do I get to call myself that now?)

The point is, during this here renaissance, I realised that I freaking love rap. So much so that I started writing my own. I'm still working out the kinks, trying to get a bit more content into them and trying to become a bit more confident in them, but I've really come to appreciate the difference between a poet who raps and, I don't know, Fiddy. Now don't get me wrong, I love a bit of Swagga® in my day. I have Fifty and Kanye on my wake-up playlist, but what I consider to be truly magnificent is when a rapper is able to talk about something that is real to everybody, when they channel what I can only perceive as something deeply spiritual within them to produce lyrics so wrought with meaning I have to stop what I'm doing and think back on my life. I'm no expert in Hip-Hop at all, but I have noticed that there seems to be a movement towards artists rapping like this, with Lupe Fiasco, Macklemore, Kendrick Lamar and others, in the same vein as Tupac and, of course, Eminem. While Hip-Hop has always been a cultural expression, it seems to me that it is, paradoxically, opening up a lot more while at the same time going back to its roots of addressing real issues in the artist's life. I feel as if it is no longer a big deal to be a white rapper, and a rapper's worth is being measured not by his swagger, but by his message. Now I also know that rappers that I haven't really experienced fully and that have been around for a while, Nas and Common for example, follow this pattern, but I don't think that this takes away from the point yet to be made.

On a side note, Macklemore is, song by song, cementing himself into the realm of my opinion as an absolute genius. A poet who guides the listener, or at least this listener, into the depths of soulful realisation. His colourful use of metaphor, his creative rhyme and his ability to express tangible emotion in his rap has left me almost speechless. I felt the need to mention this as I'm listening to him while I write and I'm not ashamed to say that feel happily inadequate. Except that I have cooler fans than he does. That's you. Blushing yet?

If all of this is true, as I believe it to be, is it representative of something even greater? It seems to me that popular culture has been moving back towards something more spiritually inspired. A few weeks ago I learned about Modernism and Post-Modernism, and as I understand it, people are employing a Post-Modern approach to self-rediscovery. Using any form of expression to find something more meaningful in their boundary-free life. Classical Religion is off-limits, somewhat understandably, but people are tired of their own form of Hedonism, and desperately seeking an anchor, some way to ground themselves. Ironically, and this is what I mentioned about Post-Modernism, this grounding can only come through something that is novel enough to give some form of high. I try not to curse in my writing, so the best phrase I can come up with for this experience is a massive “Mind-Blow” (that is, the experience of your mind being blown, courtesy of Aaron Shishler). I'm not assuming that it is a good or a bad thing, that is subjective. What I do know though is that I am a member of this movement, if not a full-fledged one. I appreciate a mind-blow as much as anybody else. No, way more than anybody else I know. But at the same time, and I stand forever grateful for this, I was brought up to embrace balance and to do all that I can to remain constantly grounded. Now I don't; in fact I lose my footing fairly regularly, but I still recognise the benefit of being grounded and I think that I do almost try my best. Now, you may ask, in a victoriously argumentative way,”He literally just claimed not to judge, but just said that he sees one side as way better than the other?”

You're right. The end.

I'm joking.

Without getting into the whole tension between objective and subjective morality, I really do believe that while there are things I believe to be right, to be good, there are also whole lot of things that might be right for me, at the stage that I am right now, that may be horribly wrong for somebody else. I don't believe that there is an exact formula for living a true life. Even from a Torah perspective, or should I say especially from a Torah perspective, one might say that six hundred and thirteen is equal to one, but first of all, there are so many different opinions as to how those commandments are fulfilled, and they're not even all able to be fulfilled. Secondly, but just as importantly, those six hundred and thirteen, even if they were all available, are only ever available to a select group of people. So while certain principles, to me, obviously apply, it would be very difficult to get it down to an exact science. Then again, if it was an exact science there would be no point in it. It's not about the destination, is it? It's about each step we take along the way. And indeed, the journey is a beautiful one.

Wow, that would be a pretty solid conclusion to a whole different post. But this post is about music and it's significant meaning along the aforementioned journey. So, I think my point being farly made, it's only fitting to end off with a quote from one of my favourite songs of all time, by Tupac Shakur:

“Even now I get discouraged,

Wonder if they take it all back will I still keep the courage?

I refuse to be a role model,

I set goals, take control, drink out my own bottles.

I made mistakes, but learned from everyone,

And when it's said and done,

I bet this brother be a better one.

If I upset you don't stress, never forget

That God hasn't finished with me yet

I feel His hand on my brain when I write rhymes,

I go blind and let the Lord do His thing.”

-Ghetto Gospel by 2Pac (feat. Elton John)